Planet of the Apes Concept Art
'Planet of the Apes' Concept Art - 1963 - 1966 Film producer [[Arthur P. Jacobs]] bought the rights to ''[[La Planète des singes]]'' in 1964 after reading [[Pierre Boulle]]'s proofs. He immediately set about turning the idea into a viable and stunning movie adaptation. He commisioned artists to produce a series of drawings and sketches inspired by the novel, to be used as a visual basis for the movie. ''"I had sketches made, and went through six sets of artists to get the concept, but none of them were right. Finally, I hit on a seventh one, and said that's how it should look."'' - [[Arthur P. Jacobs]]''[http://pota.goatley.com/magazines/cinefantastique-summer-1972.pdf 'Cinefantastique Planet of the Apes Issue' (1972) at Hunter's Planet of the Apes Archive]'' Former ''Disney'' artist Don Peters claimed that he first introduced the ruined [[Statue of Liberty]] scenes to the ''Apes'' project when he did the original publicity paintings for Jacobs. ''The Legend of the Planet of the Apes'' by Brian Pendreigh Image:Concept Art1.gif Image:Concept Art2.jpg Image:Concept Art3.jpg Image:Concept Art4.jpg Image:Concept Art5.jpg Image:Concept Art6.jpg Image:Concept Art7.gif Image:Concept Art53.jpg Image:Concept Art61.jpg Image:Concept Art54.jpg Image:Concept Art8.jpg Image:Concept Art9.jpg Image:Concept Art10.jpg Image:Concept Art11.jpg Image:Concept Art12.jpg Image:Concept Art13.jpg Image:Concept Art14.jpg Image:Concept Art57.jpg Image:Concept Art60.jpg Image:Concept Art55.jpg Image:Concept Art15.jpg Image:Concept Art16.jpg Image:Concept Art19.jpg Image:Concept Art17.jpg Image:Concept Art18.jpg 'Planet of the Apes' Screen Test - 8 March 1966 [[Rod Serling]] was asked to write a script (he had already prepared a treatment for 'King Brothers Productions' who briefly owned the movie rights to Boulle's novel). Within a year, he had written thirty script drafts and Jacobs began to approach Hollywood's studio companies. However, he found little interest in a movie where the majority of it's actors would need to be heavliy made-up for the duration of the film and would be portraying talking animals. A breakthrough came in 1965 when Jacobs secured the involvment of leading actor [[Charlton Heston]]. In early 1966 [[Richard D. Zanuck]], the then youthful head of production at 20th Century Fox, received a request from Jacobs for an appointment. Jacobs said he had been trying to produce a picture at Warner Bros., but the studio had put it in 'turnaround'. Even with a Serling script based on the Pierre Boulle novel and [[Blake Edwards]] slated to be the director, Warner Bros. had balked at the $10 million budget estimate - a huge investment in the 1960's. Zanuck read the script and told Jacobs: "I think there is something incredibly fascinating with this material. But I don't know how we're going to pull it off. The audience might just laugh at it; after the first 30 seconds we could be dead in the water. I want to make a test. I want to see if we can do the makeup properly or if it is going to look ridiculous and laughable." The ape makeup was devised by [[Ben Nye]]. Heston suggested director [[Franklin J. Schaffner]] when Blake Edwards was unable to commit, and [[Edward G. Robinson]] was persuaded to put on the costume of [[Zaius (APJ)|Dr Zaius]] for the test in March 1966. It also featured young Fox contract actors [[James Brolin]] and [[Linda Harrison]], Zanuck's then-girlfriend. Schaffner recalled: ''"Jacobs finally persuaded 20th Century Fox to make a test - a make-up test - for the very dramatic scene in which a bunch of orangutans hang over a human being and discuss what kind of lobotomy they'll perform on him. It was very clear to me that the picture wouldn't work if audiences didn't accept apes talking English. So we changed the design of the scene to a dialogue piece between Heston and, I guess it was Eddy Robinson who was wearing an ape make-up, and that did work. Well, that test was probably made six or eight months before anybody decided to go ahead with the project and I was the most surprised person in the world when I got a call from Jacobs saying we were going to go ahead."''''[http://pota.goatley.com/magazines/films-in-review-1969-08.pdf 'Films In Review' interview, conducted January 1969]'' Image:Screen Test1.jpg Image:Screen Test4.jpg Image:Screen Test5.jpg Image:Screen Test2.jpg While the test proved that the makeup could be accepted on a realistic level, it was still believed that a $5 million science-fiction film was too risky a gamble. Then, Fox released the special effects-laden ''Fantastic Voyage'', which opened to fantastic box-office grosses. [[Mort Abrahams]], who had joined up with Jacobs several years earlier and would serve as associate producer of the first two ''Apes'' pictures, explained that he, Jacobs and Zanuck were in a meeting discussing the possibility of ''Planet of the Apes'', and the success of ''Fantastic Voyage'' as proof that science fiction could be a viable force at the box office: ''"Dick Zanuck said, 'OK, I'll tell you what. If you can bring the picture in for $5 million, I'll try to get it through the board.' Dick went to New York and stuck his neck out, and convinced them. He came back and said, 'OK, go.'"''[http://www.theforbidden-zone.com/articles/potarevisited.shtml 'Planet of the Apes Revisited' by Joe Russo and Larry Landsman] Jacobs later recalled of the footage being shown to senior Fox executives in New York: ''"There were nine men in that screening room, watching the test. If any one of them had laughed we would have been dead"''. No one laughed.[http://pota.goatley.com/misc/night/ ''The Legend of the Planet of the Apes'' by Brian Pendreigh (reprinted in 'Night & Day' (2001))]'' ''Planet of the Apes'' was given its thumbs-up in September 1966, and scheduled to begin filming in Spring 1967. [[John Chambers]], already a highly-respected makeup artist at the time, was drafted in to design the ape appliances to be used in the movie: ''"At Fox, they had done a little test with the first person who tried out, and that was [[Edward G. Robinson]]. He was fabulous as [[Zaius (APJ)|Zaius]] ([[Maurice Evans]] was marvelous in the final casting), and I loved the way he did it. The makeup was crude, but they had a semblance of what they wanted. That's how the one concept was started... I was in Madrid... when Ben Nye called from Fox asking me to go to London to check out a system of making ape appliances which would allow facial manipulation. This was six months before the start of shooting. We then had to determine what the makeup concept would be."''''[http://pota.goatley.com/magazines/cinefantastique-summer-1972.pdf 'Cinefantastique Planet of the Apes Issue' (1972)]'' 'Planet of the Apes' Production Art - 1966 - 1967 ''"When Rod Serling came up with the ending it was generally agreed that we had to do everything we could to make it as unearthly as possible. We didn't want to give away the ending. So, the challange was to make up a style of life that these people might have developed because they would be strong, good with their hands. We kind of invented an architecture that was as far from anything Earth-like as we could go. We were inspired by Gaudi, and the Goreme Valley in Turkey. I had an artist, Meutner Hubner, still a very famous and fine motion picture illustrator, putting all those pieces of research together to get a look, having no idea how we would ultimately build it."'' - [[William Creber]]''The Planet of the Apes Chronicles'' by Paul A. Woods (Page 67) ''"We wanted to find an architectural style for the apes culture which would look quite unlike anything people had ever known in America and yet didn't seem futuristic or phony or anything. I came up with a suggestion. There's a Spanish architect named Antonio Gaudi, who is considered a great man in Spain and has some marvelous architecture there. His architecture suggests a kind of arborial past; some of the columns of his buildings seem like giant trunks of trees. I took this to the art director and he agreed that this was inspirational. So the city of the apes in the picture was built in that fashion. Which suggested that these people were - well, trees were nostalgic to them for having lived in them at one time."'' - [[Michael Wilson]]'''Marvel's Planet of the Apes', USA Issue 2 (October 1974)'' Image:Concept Art31.jpg Image:Concept Art32.jpg Image:Concept Art33.jpg Image:Concept Art34.jpg Image:Concept Art35.jpg Image:Concept Art36.jpg Image:Concept Art37.jpg Image:Concept Art22.jpg Image:Concept Art23.jpg Image:Concept Art24.jpg Image:Concept Art25.jpg Image:Concept Art62.jpg Image:Concept Art20.jpg|Goreme Valley, Turkey (inspiration for Ape City) Image:Concept Art76.jpg|Goreme Valley, Turkey (inspiration for Ape City) Image:Concept Art21.jpg Image:Concept Art63.jpg Image:Concept Art40.jpg Image:Concept Art41.jpg Image:Concept Art42.jpg Image:Concept Art64.jpg Image:Concept Art65.jpg Image:Concept Art43.jpg Image:Concept Art66.jpg Image:Concept Art67.jpg Image:Concept Art68.jpg Image:Concept Art69.jpg Image:Concept Art70.jpg Image:Concept Art71.jpg Image:Concept Art72.jpg Image:Concept Art73.jpg Image:Thomassketch.jpg Image:Concept Art74.jpg Image:Concept Art27.jpg Image:Concept Art56.jpg Image:Concept Art39.jpg Image:Concept Art38.jpg Image:Concept Art45.jpg Image:Concept Art44.jpg Image:Concept Art47.jpg Image:Concept Art48.jpg Image:Concept Art49.jpg Image:Concept Art50.jpg Image:Concept Art51.jpg Image:Concept Art52.jpg Image:Concept Art30.jpg Image:Concept Art46.jpg Image:Concept Art28.jpg Image:Concept Art29.jpg Image:Concept Art77.jpg Image:Concept Art78.jpg|[[John Chambers]]: ''"First try - POOR!"'' Image:Concept Art58.jpg Image:Concept Art75.jpg Image:Concept Art59.jpg Image:Concept Art80.jpg Image:Concept Art81.jpg Image:Concept Art82.jpg Image:Concept Art79.jpg 'Planet of the Apes' Costume Tests - April 1967 The aging Robinson found it difficult to breathe in the make-up, and according to the film's make-up designer, John Chambers, the star refused to shave off his beard, making his ape transformation impossible. Jacobs had already been scheming to dump Robinson and replace him with someone cheaper and the row was just the excuse he needed. Robinson was paid off, the Welsh Shakespearean actor [[Maurice Evans]] was hired and Jacobs saved money. It was in no one's interest that the truth came out and it remained a secret for over thirty years.[http://pota.goatley.com/misc/night/ ''The Legend of the Planet of the Apes'' by Brian Pendreigh (reprinted in 'Night & Day' (2001))]'' The rest of the cast included [[Kim Hunter]], [[Roddy McDowall]], [[James Whitmore]], [[James Daly]] and [[Linda Harrison]]. The formerly blacklisted [[Michael Wilson]] was credited as co-writer with Serling. New ape makeup was devised by [[John Chambers]], who had developed his talents from his time creating prosthetic limbs for amputees during World War II and found success after the war in Hollywood designing the make up on TV shows. The set was designed by [[William Creber]]. To cut down costs the concept was altered so that the Ape society was not advanced and futuristic but rather primitive, with the apes living in mud huts. But a total of 200 actors were needed to play the Apes. Image:Custume Test2.jpg Image:Grouptest.jpg Image:Custume Test4.jpg Image:Custume Test6.jpg|Lombardo / Wong / ? / ? Image:Lombardotest.jpg|[[Robert Lombardo]] Image:Wongtest.jpg|[[Joe Wong]] Image:Wongcostume.jpg|[[Joe Wong]] Image:Costume Test14.jpg Image:Costume Test15.jpg Image:Costume Test16.jpg Image:Custume Test8.jpg|'Tiare' Image:Botelhocostume.jpg|Erlynn Botelho Image:SillaChimp.jpg|Felix Silla / ? Image:Sillacostume.jpg|[[Felix Silla]] Image:Maximus.jpg|[[Woodrow Parfrey]] Image:Paul Lambert.jpg|[[Paul Lambert]] Image:Lombardomakeup.jpg Image:Custume Test12.jpg Image:Custume Test13.jpg Image:Custume Test9.jpg Image:Custume Test10.jpg Image:Custume Test11.jpg ''"We began by making a moulange - a plaster likeness of the actor's face. We poured a gelatin-like substance over their faces, and this solidifies in a few minutes. Then we removed this and we could thus have a negative face mold. Into this we'd pour artificial stone, a plaster that withstands heat and is five times as hard as plaster of paris. So now we have an actual three-dimensional bust of the respective actor. Onto this head, we then began to create in clay the ape features. Molds are made for each of these features, and we drill small holes in them and inject the foam rubber with a sort of grease gun. This then cures for six or seven hours at 200*F in an oven. We must make sure there are no bubbles in the mold - or we've lost six hours time. So you see, we make an individual mold of each component of each actor's face. From this mold we can make as many cheeks, noses, or chins as we need. We do not use the same chin or other makeup twice. This is because the liquid latex rubber bonds to the foam rubber, and usually tears when we remove the makeup. Our main concern is not the safety of the makeup, but the safety of the actor's skin. So we use gentle chemicals to remove the makeup, throw it away, and use a fresh supply the next day. The appliances tear easily, especially at the edges." "We had three wig makers working fulltime on ''Planet of the Apes''. The big problem is to stop the actors tearing off the wigs and ruining them. The wigs are made of human hair - we wanted Chinese but the authorities refused us an OK to import Communist hair, so we developed a source in Korea. The hair is twice as strong as Caucasian hair. It is all handhooked into the lace, hair by hair, thousands in each wig. Human hair is close to ape hair. We found European hair is too fine for the apes - but the Oriental hair suffices."''''[http://pota.goatley.com/magazines/cinefantastique-summer-1972.pdf 'Cinefantastique Planet of the Apes Issue' (1972)]'' - Creative Makeup Designer [[John Chambers]]. ---- See also: [[Pictures from the set of 'Planet of the Apes (1968)']] References